Kristy Wu

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Two loyal LA police officers Taylor and Zavala patrol the city's streets arresting drug dealers and gang members, protecting each other's backs and each other's families. The story is told through a series of amateur film footage apparently from police officers, criminals, civilians and surveillance cameras to provide a uniquely accurate depiction of the city's dangers and its cops.

The concept of "losing face" is the titular reference made by Bertha Bay-Sa Pan's Face, the story of three generations of Chinese-American women living in Queens (during both the 1970s and 1990s) whose lives are forever altered by an adherence to outmoded beliefs. Earnest and intermittently poignant despite its obvious construction, Bay-Sa Pan's drama is yet another in a long line of cinematic stories about immigrant families struggling to simultaneously assimilate and retain their ethnic heritage. And while it brings little freshness to the burgeoning sub-genre, this minor film - mildly affecting even considering its uneven performances and some grating use of music - nonetheless conveys the intractability of long-held attitudes and the frequent impossibility of cross-generational reconciliation.

The life of demure, respectful teenager Kim (Bai Ling) is forever altered when, after being raped by acquaintance Daniel (Will Yun Lee), she discovers she's pregnant and is forced by her mother Mrs. Lieu (Kieu Chinh) - who blames Kim for the situation, and who's eager to minimize her own dishonor - to marry her spiteful attacker. Desperate to escape this miserable betrothed life, Kim eventually snaps, leaving the baby girl in her mother's care before fleeing for Hong Kong. Nineteen years later, Kim returns to Queens to attend her resentful daughter Genie's (Kristy Wu) high school graduation, only to find tradition-rejecting history repeating itself. Ignoring her grandmother's disapproving stance toward anything modern or American, Genie surreptitiously wears belly shirts that display her forbidden naval piercing, hangs out with non-Chinese friends, and has begun dating Michael (Anthony "Treach" Criss, frontman for Naughty by Nature), an African-American DJ whose skin color makes him, in the eyes of Genie's elderly guardian, an unacceptable boyfriend.

A talented ensemble cast brings an extremely authentic family dynamic to "What's Cooking?," a satisfying four-course cross-section of ethnic American clans gathering for their Thanksgiving dinners.

Conceived by director Gurinder Chadha as a celebration of diversity, the film opens with an ironic shot of an advertisement on the side of a Los Angeles bus featuring an airbrushed white-bread family carving a turkey. Chadha then moves inside the bus to show the rainbow of races living together in the area, then on into a grocery store, where she picks up her first story in which a young Mexican-American man (Douglas Spain) bumps into his exiled father (Victor Rivers) and invites him home for Thanksgiving dinner.

This doesn't sit too well with his mother (Mercedes Ruehl), who had kicked Rivers out after discovering he'd had an affair. But she's prepared to make the best of it as her huge family gathers for their traditional daylong holiday preparations, mixing turkey with a cornucopia of Latino delicacies.